SYLLOGISTIC REASONING

PROBLEM: - To study the systematic errors in syllogistic reasoning INTRODUCTION Reasoning

Reason or reasoning is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature. The concept of reasoning is sometimes referred to as rationality . Reason or "reasoning" is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. Reasoning is a consideration which explains or justifies some event, phenomenon or behavior. The ways in which human beings reason through argument are the subject of inquiries in the field of logic. Reasoning is closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination. Psychologists and cognitive scientists have attempted to study and explain how people reason, e.g. which cognitive and neural processes are engaged and how cultural factors affect the inferences that people draw. The field of automated reasoning studies how reasoning may or may not be modeled computationally. Animal psychology considers the controversial question of whether animals can reason. Reasoning is the process of understanding a situation beyond what information provided to us depicts. So simply speaking, reasoning is a set process that enables us to go beyond the information given. When you reason a matter, you do it logically so as to come to a conclusion. Human beings have capability to sense things and verify the facts what is actually presented to them by the world. The reasoning part of the human brain has gifted us with precious science, literature, language and many other scripts.

Difference between Thinking, Problem Solving and Reasoning

Thought is simply an extension of perception and memory. When we perceive, we form a mental representation. When we remember, we try to bring that mental representation to mind. When we think, we use representations to try to solve a problem or answer a question; often when we think we are actually just evaluating and organizing our new and existing mental representations. Thinking means manipulating mental representations for any purpose. Reasoning refers to the process by which people generate and evaluate arguments and beliefs. Problem solving refers to the process of transforming one situation into another to meet a goal. The aim is to move from a current, unsatisfactory state (the initial state) to a state in which the problem is resolved (the goal state). To get from the initial state to the goal state, the person uses operators, mental and behavioral processes aimed at transforming the initial state until it eventually approximates the goal. Thus on the basis of mental representations we have or have generated, we generate and evaluate arguments and beliefs and these lead us to solve problems by moving from the initial state to the goal state.

The ability to solve problems is a basic life skill and is essential to understanding technical subjects. Problem-solving is a subset of critical thinking and employs the same strategies. Although the line between the two is fuzzy, in general, the goal of problem-solving is to adduce correct solutions to well-structured problems, whereas the goal of critical thinking is to construct and defend reasonable solutions to ill-structured problems. Critical thinking can be set apart from problem solving (Hedges, 1991) in that problem solving is a linear process of evaluation, while critical thinking is a comprehensive set of abilities allowing the inquirer to properly facilitate each stage of the linear problem-solving process. Basically, problemsolving is the process of reasoning to solutions using more than simple application of previously learned procedures.

Types of Reasoning
Logic is obviously used everywhere, at work, when we are learning a new language, etc.

Logical reasoning is a system that we use to construct an argument from observation and known facts. We can use logical reasoning to make assumptions, through known facts. A very popular phrase that depicts logic is this: Every man is mortal, Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is mortal. Logical reasoning is the process of using a rational, systematic series of steps based on sound mathematical procedures and given statements to arrive at a conclusion. Geometric proofs use logical reasoning and the definitions and properties of geometric figures and terms to state definitively that something is always true. Logical reasoning is the process which uses arguments, statements, premises and axioms to define whether a statement is true or false, resulting in a logical or illogical reasoning. In todays logical reasoning two different types of reasoning can be distinguished, known as deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Inductive Reasoning: Is reasoning from specific observations to more general propositions. An inductive conclusion is not necessarily true because its underlying premises are only probable, not certain. For example, say you asked a friend who appeared to be quite upset if they were feeling ok, and they replied yes Im fine, inductive reasoning could lead you to the conclusion if my friend says she is fine, then she must be fine. It is simply reasoning made by observation. Another example of inductive reasoning would be a child who believes that if Santa can climb down the chimney, so can the boogey men! Nevertheless, inductive reasoning forms a large chunk of our day to day reasoning. If someone raises their voice we reason that they must be angry, if someone looks sad, we reason that something must be wrong, if everything appears the same as it did yesterday, we reason that everything is the same as yesterday. Deductive Reasoning: Is logical reasoning that draws a conclusion from a set of assumptions, or premises. In contrast to inductive reasoning, it starts off with an idea rather than an observation. In some ways, deduction is the flipside of induction: whereas induction starts with specifics and draws general conclusions, deduction starts with general principles and makes inferences about specific instances. Unlike inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning can lead to certain rather than simply probable conclusions, as long as the premises are correct and the reasoning is logical.

Types of Deductive Reasoning

Conditional Reasoning: Conditional reasoning is based on an 'if A then B' construct that posits B to be true if A is true. This leaves open the question of what happens when A is false, which means that in this case, B can logically be either true or false. In the statement 'If A then B', A is the antecedent and B is the consequent. You can affirm or deny either the antecedent or consequent, which may lead to error. Conditional reasoning is a critical component of logical thinking and has been the subject of many empirical and theoretical studies. Conditional reasoning in its most basic sense involves making inferences with a given major premise of the form p implies q and one of four possible minor premises. Modus ponens (MP) is the logical principle that involves reasoning with the premises p implies q, p is true and leads to the logically correct conclusion q is true. Modus tollens (MT) involves reasoning with the premises p implies q, q is false and leads to the logically correct conclusion p is false. These two are valid logical forms, since they both lead to a single, logically correct conclusion. Affirmation of the consequent (AC) involves reasoning with the premises p implies q, q is true. Denial of the antecedent (DA) involves reasoning with the premises p implies q, p is false. In both cases the implied conclusions, p is true for AC and q is false for DA are not logically correct. Neither of these forms leads to a single, logically correct conclusion and the correct response would be to deny the implied (biconditional) conclusion in both cases. Syllogistic Reasoning: A syllogism is a form of logical reasoning. Syllogisms are arguments that take several parts, typically with two statements which are assumed to be true (or premises) that lead to a conclusion. The two premises are referred to as the major and minor premises. Their truth is taken as certain, regardless of whether the statements make any sense in real world. Aristotle defined a syllogism as discourse in which, certain things being stated something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being so. He was the first in his time to divert with the correctness and validity of logical reasoning. "The process of deduction has traditionally been illustrated with a syllogism, a three-part set of statements or propositions that includes a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

Major premise: All books from that store are new.

Minor premise: These books are from that store.

Conclusion: Therefore, these books are new. A syllogism is valid (or logical) when its conclusion follows from its premises and is invalid if a conclusion does not follow from its premises. A syllogism is true when it makes accurate claims--that is, when the information it contains is consistent with the facts. To be sound, a syllogism must be both valid and true. However, a syllogism may be valid without being true or true without being valid. The majority of syllogisms do not have valid conclusion. People tend to make maximum errors in invalid syllogisms The premises have words called quantifiers in them. Quantifiers provide information about how many members of a class are under consideration: all, none, some are and some are not. Examples of quantified premises: All Gordon setters are dogs, No polar bears are inanimate objects, Some flowers are blue Some fish are not water-borne etc. The words all and some are being used in the ways that differ slightly from normal English usage. Here, all means every single; some are means atleast some and perhaps all. And some are not means atleast some are not and perhaps all are not. There are 2 types of syllogisms- Abstract syllogisms and Concrete syllogisms. Abstract syllogisms are those where the premises refer to abstract things like letters A, B, delta, gamma etc. something which cannot be visualized and have no imaginary ability. Whereas Concrete syllogisms are those where the premises refer to concrete things which exist in real everyday life, which have an imaginary ability and can be visualized. Example of an Abstract Syllogism: All X are Z All Z are Y Example of a Concrete Syllogism:

No fish are birds Some birds are water-borne One of the techniques of solving the syllogisms in a diagrammatic form is the Euler Circles which provide a convenient way of representing the meanings and interpretations of the different quantifiers. As per the Euler Circles the universal affirmative All A are B has two possible interpretations, that is A and B are identical or A is a subset of B. The premise No A are B is the only quantifier which has one single interpretation, they are not related, nothing exists. Similarly there are four possible combinations of the quantifier Some are and Some are not. Thus getting the conclusion for any syllogism involves 3 steps: first, one must consider all possible interpretations of the premises and the conclusion. Second, one must consider all possible combinations of meanings of the major and minor premises. Third, one must then determine whether all possible combinations of the premises. If a single interpretation of the conclusion does not follow from a single possible combination of meanings, then no valid conclusion maybe drawn. With practice, people seem to develop their own shortcut rules of solving syllogisms. Errors made while solving syllogisms: 1) Atmospheric Error: The logical terms (some are, all, no, some are not) used in the premises of a syllogism create an "atmosphere" that predisposes people to accept conclusions with the same terms. An explanation proposed early on by Woodsworth and Sells (1935) presumed that people do not even attempt to evaluate the conclusion logically. Their explanation of the errors was called the atmospheric hypothesis and was restated by Begg and Denny (1969). It says that people tend to accept a positive conclusion to positive premises and a negative conclusion to negative premises. When premises are mixed, we prefer a negative. Another part of the atmosphere hypothesis concerns responses to particular statements (some or some not) versus universal statement (all, no). People accept a universal conclusion if the premises are universal. They accept a particular conclusion is the premises are particular.

When one premise is universal and the other is particular people prefer a particular conclusion. An early and influential hypothesis about syllogistic reasoning is that responders are predisposed to accept a conclusion that fits the mood of the premises. Whenever at least one premise is negative, the most frequently accepted conclusion will be negative; whenever at least one premise contains some, the most frequently accepted conclusion will likewise contain some; otherwise the bias is toward affirmative and universal conclusions because the effect is stronger for valid conclusions. 2) Illicit Conversion Error: Chapman and Chapman (1959) proposed an account of certain errors in syllogistic reasoning, and Revlis (1975) formulated a more explicit version of the hypothesis. The idea is that individuals often make invalid conversions from All A are B to All B are A, taking the converse of the premise to be true in addition to the premise itself. Such conversions frequently yield true conclusions in daily life, and so they have a basis in probabilities. So in the case of Some A are B, people illicitly convert it to Some A are not B. Unlike the atmospheric hypothesis, this hypothesis gives people credit for trying to reason correctly but faults them for starting off on the wrong foot by misinterpreting the premises. Therefore people accept invalid syllogisms like the one below: All A are B. All C are B. All C are A. Likewise, according to the Chapmans, everyday probabilities underlie the inference that entities with a predicate in common are the same sort of thing. For example, Some A are B. Some C are B. Some C are A.

The strong point of the theory is that individuals do make illicit conversions when they evaluate immediate inferences from a single premise, particularly with assertions using abstract predicates, such as A and B. Illicit conversion must be supplanted with other explanations to account fully for all the observed errors. Because of the heavy demands on working memory by syllogistic reasoning, it should come as no surprise that people fail to consider all possible combinations of premises. Steedman reported that responders try to simplify the combinations of premises by avoiding those that call for subset relations, for example A is a subset of B. These are often overlooked when generating combinations of meanings of the major and minor premise. Similarly, people consider only some of the premise combinations when evaluating the conclusion. If a conclusion fits some but not all of the combinations, then it may well be accepted as valid. In essence, they simplify the task by not taking to heart the requirement that the conclusion must be absolutely, positively follow from the premises. 3) Belief Bias: The phenomenon of belief bias refers to people accepting any all conclusions that happen to fit with their system of beliefs. Beliefs and meaning lie at the core of human thinking, not the predicate calculus and the other abstract systems invented by philosophers. Belief bias is especially powerful when responders ignore the premises altogether and focus on the conclusion. In this case they accept a believable conclusion and reject an unbelievable one. Using verbal protocols, Barson et al. found that some individuals study the premises and try to reason for them. For these individuals, a serious conflict arises when the conclusion is valid but unbelievable.

It is believed that more no. of errors are made in concrete syllogisms than abstract syllogisms because concrete syllogisms consist of premises that can be visualized and imagined and match real life instances, thus in the process of finding logic in them as per their existence in the natural real life environment, more errors are made while deciding their conclusion which is made on the basis of real life logic rather than plain reasoning. Also it is believed that lesser no. of errors are made in syllogisms where the premises begin with the quantifier no as compared to other quantifiers because for the syllogisms beginning

with no, has direct indications and only one type of reasoning involved, that it completely doesnt exist, it has no other reasoning options involved unlike the quantifiers of all, some are, some are not which can be interpreted in many different ways, thus leading to confusion or not being aware of so many existing reasoning options for that quantifier as compared to the no quantifier which has a singular option thus leading to less confusion and less errors.

Recent Research

1) Working memory and strategies in syllogistic-reasoning tasks

K. J. Gilhooly, R. H. Logie, N. E. Wetherick and V. Wynn Memory & Cognition Volume 21, Number 1, 115-124, DOI: 10.3758/BF03211170 Abstract: It has often been asserted that working-memory limitations are a major factor contributing to problem difficulty; for example, Johnson-Lairds (1983) mental-models theory appeals to working memory limitations to explain the difficulty of syllogistic reasoning. However, few studies have directly explored working memory in problem solving in general or syllogistic reasoning in particular. This paper reports two studies. In the first, working-memory load was varied by presenting syllogistic tasks either verbally or visually (so that the premises were continuous1y available for inspection). A significant effect of memory load was obtained. In the second study, premises were presented visually for a subject-determined time. Dual-task methods were used to assess the role of working-memory components, as identified in Baddeleys (1986) model. Syllogistic performance was disrupted by concurrent randomnumber generation but not by concurrent articulatory suppression or by concurrent tapping in a preset pattern. Furthermore, the concurrent syllogism task interfered with random generation and to a lesser extent with articulatory suppression, but not with tapping. We conclude that while the central-executive component of working memory played a major role in the syllogistic-task performance reported here, the articulatory loop had a lesser role, and the visuospatial scratch pad was not involved.

2) If pigs could fly: A test of counterfactual reasoning and pretence in children with autism
Dr Fiona J. Scott, Simon Baron-Cohen, Alan Leslie British Journal of Developmental Psychology Volume 17, Issue 3, pages 349362, September 1999 Article first published online: 23 DEC 2010 DOI: 10.1348/026151099165339 Abstract: The authors report an experiment with children with autism, using the Dias & Harris (1990) method, to test the predictions that: (i) children with autism will show intact counterfactual reasoning, and (ii) since such children are impaired in pretence, they would not then show the normal facilitation effect of pretence on counterfactual reasoning ability. Children with autism and matched verbal mental age (VMA) controls were presented with a series of counterfactual syllogisms, in two conditions. One condition (Counterfactual plus Pretence) involved prompting the child's imagination during the reasoning task, whereas the other condition (Counterfactual Only) included no such prompting. Results showed that both normal 4-5-year-old children, and children with moderate learning difficulties improved in their reasoning performance when prompted to use imagination. This replicates and extends findings from Dias & Harris (1990). In children with autism, however, performance was good in the Counterfactual Only condition, but became worse when imagination was prompted. These results show that although abstract counterfactual reasoning appears intact in children with autism, their counterfactual reasoning is not facilitated by pretence in the normal way.

3) Logic and belief across the lifespan: the rise and fall of belief inhibition during syllogistic reasoning
Wim De Neys, Elke Van Gelder Developmental Science

Volume 12, Issue 1, pages 123130, January 2009 Article first published online: 13 OCT 2008 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00746.x Abstract: Popular reasoning theories postulate that the ability to inhibit inappropriate beliefs lies at the heart of the human reasoning engine. Given that people's inhibitory capacities are known to rise and fall across the lifespan, we predicted that people's deductive reasoning performance would show similar curvilinear age trends. A group of children (12-year-olds), young adults (20-year-olds), and older adults (65+-year-olds) were presented with a classic syllogistic reasoning task and a decision-making questionnaire. Results indicated that on syllogisms where beliefs and logic conflicted, reasoning performance showed the expected curvilinear age trend: Reasoning performance initially increased from childhood to early adulthood but declined again in later life. On syllogisms where beliefs and logic were consistent and sound reasoning did not require belief inhibition, however, age did not affect performance. Furthermore, across the lifespan we observed that the better people were at resisting intuitive temptations in the decision-making task, the less they were biased by their beliefs on the conflict syllogisms. As with the effect of age, one's ability to override intuitions in the decision-making task did not mediate reasoning performance on the no-conflict syllogisms. Results lend credence to the postulated central role of inhibitory processing in those situations where beliefs and logic conflict.

HYPOTHESIS
1. NO statements will have least errors 2. The no. of errors will be more in concrete syllogism as compared to abstract ones

DESIGN
Within subject counter balanced design where ABBA counterbalancing was used. Note: ABBA was used in such a way that first 3 syllogisms were abstract. The following 6 were concrete and the last 3 were abstract again.

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF VARIABLES:-

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE
1. The content of the syllogisms i. ii. Abstract syllogisms. Concrete syllogisms.

Abstract syllogisms: where alphabets / symbols are used for e.g. A,B,L,, Concrete syllogisms; actual concrete objects / living things 2. Type of Quantifier i. ii. iii. All Some No

Quantifiers are statements that start either from All, Some or No.

DEPENDENT VARIABLES
No. of Errors

CONTROL VARIABLES
1. Counterbalancing was used in the form of ABBA for distribution of abstract and concrete syllogisms 2. 6 syllogisms started with No based premises/sentences and the remaining 6 used other quantifiers. 3. In case of answers 5 possible options were given for each of the 12 syllogisms. 4. Noise and distraction to be kept minimum.

METHODOLOGY
One subject was required for the experiment Name Insiyah Age 22 Gender Female Education M.A Emotional state Normal

MATERIALS REQUIRED
(1) Lists of 12 Syllogism out of which 6 are concrete and 6 are abstract. 6 start with NO and other 6 starts with other quantifiers. (2) Record Sheet to note down the no. of errors (3) Screen

(4) Stationery

PROCEDURE
The E arranged all the material and then escorted S in the lab and made her sit comfortably. Rapport was built by asking a few general questions. Then, the S was given the following instructions-:

INSTRUCTIONS:
This is a very simple experiment on logical reasoning I will be giving you a sheet of paper with some reasoning problems, your task is to solve each one of them. As you solve each problem keep in mind the term some should be interpreted as at least some & possibly all. Similarly Some are not should be interpreted as at least some or not and possibly all or not. Out of the options given you have to select the options that can be concluded from the two sentence / premises. Have you understood? Shall we begin? Then the S was asked post-task questions and was debriefed about the experiment, after which she was thanked for her participation and was escorted out of the lab.

ANALYSIS OF DATA INDIVIDUAL DATA

Table 5.1 Sr. no. Type of quantifiers All All No No All Some All All Some Some No Some A/C Correct answer 1 A E A Atmospheric error 2 3 4 A A C E E E E D D Belief bias Atmospheric error 5 6 C C E E E C Atmospheric error Ss Response Type of error

All All No Some Some Some

Illicit conversion bias

Atmospheric error Illicit conversion error

10

No Some All Some No Some

Atmospheric error

11 12

A A

E E

D D

Belief bias Atmospheric error

Table 5.1 record sheet for errors in syllogistic reasoning

There was only 1 S who was exposed to both the conditions. The conditions were abstract syllogisms and concrete syllogisms. Abstract syllogisms: where alphabets / symbols are used for e.g.

A,B,L,,. Concrete syllogisms: actual concrete objects / living things. The record of Ss responses of no. of errors under abstract reasoning was noted on table 5.1 and was found to be 5. The record of Ss responses of no. of errors under concrete reasoning was noted on table 5.1 and was found to be 5.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A syllogism is a form of logical reasoning. Syllogisms are arguments that take several parts, typically with two statements which are assumed to be true (or premises) that lead to a conclusion. The purpose of this experiment was to study systematic errors in syllogistic reasoning. It was assumed that No statements would have the least no. of errors as compared to other statements that were all and some statements. It was also assumed that there would be more errors in concrete syllogisms as compared to abstract syllogisms. Abstract syllogisms are syllogisms where alphabets / symbols are used for e.g. A,B,L,,. Concrete syllogisms are syllogisms where actual concrete objects / living things are used. This was because concrete things which exist in real everyday life, which

have an imaginary ability and can be visualized as compared to abstract things which are just symbols and cannot be easily visualized. Table 5.1 was the record of Ss responses which was no. of errors on abstract and concrete syllogisms. The S made equal no. of errors which was 5 for both abstract as well as concrete syllogisms. Hence, it did not affect the S if the syllogisms were concrete or abstract. As an ancillary observation, it was observed that the S made a lot of atmospheric errors. Table 5.1 was the record of Ss responses which was on all, some and no statements. The S did not make least errors for NO statements. There were 12 syllogisms, out of which S made 10 errors. The S gave 2 right answers, out of which one was NO-NO statement and the second one was SOME-SOME statement. Hence, the S did not make least no. of errors for NO statements. As an ancillary observation, it was observed that the S made atmospheric error and belief bias for abstract syllogisms. Atmospheric errors are errors in which people tend to accept a positive conclusion to positive premises and a negative conclusion to negative premises. When premises are mixed, people prefer a negative. The phenomenon of belief bias refers to people accepting any all conclusions that happen to fit with their system of beliefs. As an ancillary observation, it was also observed that the S made atmospheric and illicit conversion bias for concrete syllogisms. The idea of illicit conversion error is that individuals often make invalid conversions from All A are B to All B are A, taking the converse of the premise to be true in addition to the premise itself. Hence by reviewing the individual data, it was found that according to the hypothesis NO statements will have least errors; the data was not in line with the hypothesis. Hence by reviewing the individual data, it was found that according to the hypothesis - The no. of errors will be more in concrete syllogism as compared to abstract ones, the data was not in line with the hypothesis.

Comparative analysis of the no. of errors under no, some and all statements was drawn in figure 5.a.

Comparative analysis of the no. of errors under abstract and concrete syllogisms was drawn in figure 5.b. For further statistical analysis, the analysis of group data of at least 60 people (30 subjects for each condition) would be needed. A two way anova (f-test) would be conducted. If the fvalue is found to be significant, post-hoc analysis of the t-test using two-tail would be done.

CONCLUSION
The main trends in the individual data were inconsistent with the hypothesis and theories. The result obtained was not in line with the hypothesis- NO statements will have least errors. The results obtained were not in line with the hypothesis- The no. of errors will be more in concrete syllogism as compared to abstract syllogisms.

REFERENCES
(Laurie J. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell, The Concise Wadsworth Handbook, 2nd ed. Wadsworth, 2008). Galotti, K.M (2004) Cognitive Psychology: In and out of laboratory. (3rd edition) Wadswoth/Thomson Learning. Snodgras, J.G., Levy-Berger G.V. & Haydon, M.(1985) Human Experimental Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/types_reasoning/syllogistic_reasoning. html http://www.logicinaction.org/docs/ch3.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010028571900235 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010028581900189 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reasoning